Not much out of me. I have a side project which I'm working on. It's a secret. I'll mention it here when the time is right.

Both autos are in good working order -- one of those rare times for me. It involved my finally getting a set of jumper cables though when my MR2's battery went dead.

Turns out the other person with an MR2 at our complex is one of the office people. I caught her this morning and complimented her on the vehicle. Turns out it's the same year, though hers has about 60k fewer miles on it.

On a side note, I got roped into learning Hebrew again. I remember a lot of it, strangely. It's just laid dormant in my brain for all these years.

I could bitch about work -- but that's too easy. See the aforementioned comment about ping and you've got a pretty good idea.

In other news, I defy you all to find a more wretched, miserable, pathetic group of people than those who answer phones for questions on traffic court. This one was really special today, let me tell ya! The phone tree drops you after several recorded messages, so the only way to get anything done is to sit tight and pretend that your touchtone phone is a rotary. Don't touch a damned thing and *especially* don't be fooled by that "press 0 for the attendant" bit. Pressing that dumps you to a busy signal!

The only way to go is to wait. Sit on your hands and wait an eternity, steadfastly ignoring all instructions to the contrary, entreating you to press a button.

When you finally get there, you're greeted with "There's n calls ahead of you. After I'm done with those, I'll be back." and without a chance to say "thank you", you're dropped to hold music. I'm a man of uncommonly strong will, so I stick with it.

I finally get her back on the line and give her my info. She says my trial date in two weeks as though I've managed to do something wrong. I query her about that to push her back on the defensive and we get down to chattering about an extension. So, we start talking around rescheduling. She tells me that I have to pay up and there's no hope. Undeterred, I keep talking in circles until I find an opening! Aha! Through I go and...into another brick wall. She tells me that I have to pay up again and there's no hope. Undeterred, I keep going in circles until -- yep! There it is again! Over her protests and into the new arena of conversation about how this is going to work.

Eight rounds of hardheadedness in about an hour's worth of chatter finally nets me a less-than-satisfactory answer, but a way through. It's amazing to me that an infrastructure which claims to be fair is full of so many attempts to shunt people into paying up rather than defending their case.

I defy you all to find me a class of people more miserable. They're more pathetic than H.G. Wells' Morlocks. They're more brainwashed than Druuge crew. They're more prone to inaction and bureaucracy than Vogons.

I further defy you to find me a part of the US government which is in need of rebuilding more than the DMV and the legal process attached to it.

I do wish Moller would hurry up with mass production of those flying cars. I'm tired of this game!

On the plus side, a friend from TX was out here for a little bit. It seemed with the weather in TX that he'd be staying here longer than planned, though he just managed to sneak in after a few false starts and reschedules.

Additionally, there's been a new release of Uplink. I never did get around to releasing my update. After incorporating the patch and reconverting the whole thing to work in Linux, I'll make a concerted effort to push it out.

Comments:

I am feeling your pain with the traffic court phones...I had my own hellish experience trying to get through the automated phones at the Santa Barbara traffic court this week (I got a speeding ticket last week enroute to LA...grr!) I have yet to talk to a human, but I got a general idea of how financially screwed I am because of it, thanks to their oh-so-helpful website.